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President Obama  three weeks late  has done something to help rescue those Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by extremist Islamist terrorists.

He's sending a team of military officials and hostage negotiators to help the hapless Nigerian government track down and retrieve the 223 girls.

The girls will almost certainly be sold to sex traffickers or kept as sex slaves by the militant terrorist group known as Boko Haram, whose name translates as "Western education is sinful."

It's nice that our president has "sprung" into action. But what took him  and the rest of the world  so long to work up their outrage over this latest crime against children?

Boko Haram is a textbook gang of jihadist thugs.

It has killed ten thousand Nigerians in a decade and specializes in kidnapping Christians and Western tourists.

Its goal is to take over Nigeria and install a pure Islamic state governed by sharia law that will keep its young girls stupid and imprisoned by its moronic brand of 7th century fundamentalism.

Yet for three weeks there was hardly a peep of protest from the West about what Boko Haram did to these schoolgirls.

I didn't expect to hear any moral fury from the world "leaders" of the United Nations, where probably half the membership agrees with Boko Haram's position on the subjection of women.

But where was the White House for the last three weeks? Where was Congress? Where was our president-in-waiting, Hillary Clinton? Oprah?

Didn't any American politician think the kidnapping of innocent children by violent Islamists was worth a speech of condemnation?

Or, better yet, a call for the United States to step up, become the moral point man on this act and do something decisive?

Were our brave pols worried they might offend one of their important constituencies? Or be blown up by terrorists?

Poor John Kerry made a fool of himself earlier this week, blustering something about Boko Haram's "unconscionable crime," its violence and, bizzarely, its failure to offer people a good health care plan, jobs or schools.

The leaders of Boko Haram deserve to be rounded up and shot for their crimes, not critiqued for their poor social welfare programs.

The United States blew it. It needed to take a strong stand weeks ago. And where were all those people who make their livings saving the children of the world?

They should have been united in demanding the civilized world to quickly rescue those girls and punish Boko Haram for its evil.

Human sex trafficking is a worldwide problem  a $32 billion global business. It operates in every country, including the United States.

Yet governments  including ours -- are unwilling to do anything about it on a government level even in cases like this.

I'm tired of a world that talks about saving children, but when it comes time to actually save them does nothing but give them lip service.

America needs to take a strong stand against the Islamists terrorists in Nigeria or these abductions will never stop.

We have to make it clear to Boko Haram and its ilk that abducting children is unacceptable under any circumstance and that we will do all we can to punish the perpetrators and anyone who buys those girls for the sex trade.

We should start using drones, intelligence agencies, special forces teams and every tool we have. We shouldn't worry about the United Nations or ask for its permission.

And we should make it clear to every terrorist group around the world that from now on if you abduct children for the sex trade or anything else, we're going to find you and we're going to kill you.

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Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation.